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2019: WE NEED A TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION Commission in the US now for the Adoption Programs that stole generations of children... Goldwater Institute's work to dismantle ICWA is another glaring attempt at cultural genocide.

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Friday, January 1, 2016

Real reconciliation requires justice

What happened in residential schools was genocide. But what really matters is justice.

What happened in residential schools was not
"cultural genocide". It wasn't "language genocide". And it wasn't
"almost genocide". What happened in residential schools was genocide.
Canadian officials targeted Indians for assimilation and elimination
purely for economic and political reasons. Scalping bounties on certain
Indigenous nations are indicative of such a lethal mentality.
Canada wasn't killing Indians because of our cultures; it was killing
Indians to get rid of the "Indian problem" as Indian Affairs officials
kept referring to it. Commentators often refer to Duncan Campbell
Scott's quote regarding Indian policy in Canada as proof that the
intention was assimilation and not elimination. Scott was the deputy
superintendent general for the Department of Indian Affairs from 1913 to
1932, who explained in 1920:

"I want to get rid of the Indian problem....Our objective is to
continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been
absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question and no
Indian Department."

However, there is more to the story than this. In 1907, Dr. Peter Bryce, the Chief Medical Officer for the federal government, wrote a report on the conditions in residential schools that detailed the astounding number of deaths of Indian children in those schools.The government's own lawyer also warned Canadian officials in 1907:

"Doing nothing to obviate the preventable causes of death, brings the
Department within unpleasant nearness to the charge of manslaughter."

Yet, there was no shock and alarm at the time nor did
anyone from Indian Affairs come up with an emergency action plan to
protect Indigenous children whom Scott referred to as "inmates."
Surprisingly, the deaths of Indigenous children appeared to be in line
with the objective of the policy. In 1910, Scott explained in a letter
he wrote to one of his Indian Agents:

"Indian children...die at a much higher rate [in residential schools]
than in their villages. But this alone does not justify a change in the
policy of this Department, which is geared towards a final solution of
our Indian problem."

Residential schools were never a well-intended policy "gone
wrong" as claimed by former Minister of Indian Affairs, John Duncan.
They were death camps for nearly half of all the "inmates" who entered
some of those schools. The tiny handcuffs and the electric chairs speak
of horrors completely unrelated to "education."These children didn't die from smallpox or some other series of
unfortunate and unpreventable events in those schools. Many of these
children were starved, tortured, beaten, raped, and murdered.
Nutritional tests and medical experimentations were done on these
children only to be denied to benefit of the very medicines created at
the expense of their suffering. This sounds eerily familiar to horrors
inflicted on other populations around the world.Survivor stories of frequent rapes, forced abortions, and unmarked
graves stand in stark contradiction to any notion of a benign education
policy -- especially once government, church and law enforcement
officials became aware of what was happening. Why else did these schools
have graveyards instead of playgrounds?It is too easy for politicians to claim "cultural genocide" now, when they are well aware that cultural
genocide was specifically left out of the United Nations Convention on
the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Much of the
debate has focused on whether or not Canada "intended" to kill Indians.
According to international legal experts, leaders can be held
accountable if they knew or should have known about the actions and
failed to prevent them. Direct evidence of intent is not necessary but
can be inferred from circumstantial evidence. The few excerpts above
prove that Canadian officials knew not only of the poor conditions in
residential schools, but the large number of deaths that were occurring,
and that they could be held accountable for "manslaughter."Genocide, by the UN definition, is said to include:

Killing members of the group;

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Many have argued that the totality of Canada's actions towards
Indigenous peoples amounted to genocide. In other words, Canadian
officials have been guilty of some or all of the above genocidal acts.

What is particularly striking is the genocidal act of deliberately
creating the conditions of life meant to bring about the destruction of
the group in whole or in part. The following acts have been found to be
genocidal according to international criminal law:

subjecting the group to a subsistence diet;

systematic expulsion from homes;

denial of right to medical services;

creation of circumstances that would lead to a slow death, such as
lack of proper housing, clothing and hygiene or excessive work or
physical exertion; and

rape.

Think of the historic and ongoing conditions of many First Nations
who were prohibited from leaving the reserve by law and given only
minimal rations; or the Inuit and First Nations who were forcibly
relocated from their homelands. There is also a direct link between
Canada's purposeful chronic underfunding of essential human services for
First Nations (housing, water, sanitation) and their premature deaths.
In residential schools, children were starved, denied medical care, and many suffered slow deaths.Genocide is the material destruction of a group -- even if not all
members of the group are destroyed. There is no set number of people
that must be killed for the crime of genocide to occur. It does not need
to mimic the worst holocaust to be genocide. It must be a substantial
part of the group. There is also no need for a government plan or policy
to exist in order to find genocide. Even without a finding of genocide,
the officials could still be charged with crimes against humanity or
related crimes. Given the significant death tolls, it does not matter whether the
courts have accepted the claim of genocide, whether lawyers agree with
the claim, or whether communications specialists think it might be too
harsh a term to present to the Canadian public. What happened in
residential schools were criminal acts back then, just as they are now.
All of the people who had the power to stop these deaths (RCMP, Indian
Affairs and the churches), not only knew about the deaths -- but refused
to act. At the very least, that is criminal negligence causing death.We will never get to reconciliation unless we know the truth -- all of it. So far, we have only scratched the surface.Residential schools can't be looked at in isolation. Indian policy
included the forced sterilizations of Indigenous women and little girls.
Forced sterilizations were never about our cultures -- it was about
eliminating our populations.(9) We are not overrepresented in prisons,
in child and family services and as murdered and missing Indigenous
women and girls because of our cultures.We are targeted because we are Indians. Indigenous Nations stand in
the way of unfettered land and water use, resource extraction and
industrial development -- i.e. complete environmental destruction in the
name of corporate profit.Justice Murray Sinclair and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
(TRC) team have done the impossible -- they succeeded in ensuring the
voices of survivors were heard, that the atrocities committed in
residential schools were documented, and that the truth be told. So far
we have only seen the Executive Summary. The final report, which will be many thousands of pages long, will no doubt shed light on even more disturbing details.In addition to the incredible emotional and psychological toll this
must have taken on Justice Sinclair and his team, they stood strong in
the face of the most aggressive anti-First Nation government Canada has
seen in years. They, together with the survivors, are true heroes.But we can't expect the TRC to carry this burden alone. Nor is this story complete.The TRC went as far as it could to address the issue of genocide in
the face of various legal considerations and consistent political denial
that these schools were anything other than well-intended educational
institutes.It's on the rest of us to stand up for the truth and ensure Canadians
know everything that happened in the schools covered in this report and
the ones not yet exposed.Canada tried in various ways to eliminate our cultures -- through
residential schools and outlawing our ceremonies and practices in the
Indian Act. This is all true.But Canada also created the conditions which led to our deaths by the
thousands inside and outside residential schools. This is also true and
this is genocide.Once we can put the truth in the table, then we can talk about
reconciliation. We need to act on the TRC recommendations related to
truth-seeking: a national inquiry on murdered and missing Indigenous
women and girls, an investigation into the overrepresentation of
Indigenous peoples in prison, and immediate action and reporting on the
overrepresentation of Indigenous children in foster care.The Indian day school class action has just been accepted by the courts and that will likely also reveal similar abuses suffered by Indian children in even more schools.(11)We must focus on getting all the facts so we can finally see justice
for Indigenous peoples and true reconciliation. A determination that
Canada did not commit genocide does not put an end to the story. It's
only just the beginning and it's not going to be as easy as saying
sorry. Canadian and Church officials who committed such horrific crimes
upon Indigenous peoples need to be brought to justice.The mass murder or manslaughter of our people requires criminal
prosecution -- just like it would anywhere else in the world. Canada
doesn't receive a "Get out of Jail free" card simply because it hid its
atrocities so well.

Real reconciliation requires justice.Image: Wikimedia commons

Dr. Pamela D. Palmater is a Mi'kmaw lawyer and member of the Eel River
Bar First Nation in New Brunswick. She teaches Indigenous law, politics
and governance at Ryerson University and heads their Centre for
Indigenous Governance.

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To Veronica Brown

Veronica, we adult adoptees are thinking of you today and every day. We will be here when you need us. Your journey in the adopted life has begun, nothing can revoke that now, the damage cannot be undone. Be courageous, you have what no adoptee before you has had; a strong group of adult adoptees who know your story, who are behind you and will always be so.

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As the single largest unregulated industry in the United States, adoption is viewed as a benevolent action that results in the formation of “forever families.” The truth is that it is a very lucrative business with a known sales pitch. With profits last estimated at over $1.44 billion dollars a year, mothers who consider adoption for their babies need to be very aware that all of this promotion clouds the facts and only though independent research can they get an accurate account of what life might be like for both them and their child after signing the adoption paperwork.

This has happened to many, many Native children! We must protect ICWA and enforce it so that it stops! Even non-Native families that are not racist cannot provide a Native child with cultural knowledge and belonging. Only their tribes can do that. #ProudtoProtectICWAhttps://t.co/oA1e5kiK4k

A4: Twenty-one states filed an amicus brief in this case in support of #ICWA. These states, which are home to over 70 percent of tribal nations, know that ICWA helps them better serve Native children and families.#ProudtoProtectICWA

TWO WORLDS Book 1 (second edition)

Two Worlds anthology (Vol. 1)

“…sometimes shocking, often an emotional read…this book is for individuals interested in the culture and history of the Native American Indian, but also on the reading lists of universities offering ethnic/culture/Native studies.”

“Well-researched and obviously a subject close to the heart of the authors/compilers, I found the extent of what can only be described as ‘child-snatching’ from the Native Americans quite staggering. It’s not something I was aware of before…”

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Good words

I agree with you on the caring of “orphans” – true orphans, not “paper orphans” as Kathryn Joyce describes in her book, The Child Catchers. The most important thing to remember, however, is that the orphan’s original identity and family connection and heritage must remain intact and available to him or her forever. This business of adoption – and I do mean the multi-billion-dollar, unregulated business of adoption – of wiping out the child’s original identity, falsifying birth records with the adopters’ names, altering facts such as place of birth, severing familial kinship, must stop … Immediately. And the outrageous injustices foisted upon adoptees and their families for the past 100 years must be addressed and righted. We are faced today with six to seven million people who were basically legally kidnapped, sold to the highest bidder, their identities falsified, and placed in a lifelong, imposed witness protection program for which there is no legal recourse. Then told by church officials, agency and government functionaries that they have no right to know who they are, to do genealogy or learn about important family medical history, or know the identity of or associate with blood relatives. This is how the Judeo-Christian society has interpreted “caring for orphans”, for it’s own selfish interests and greed. Starting with Georgia Tann, the woman charged with kidnapping and selling 5,000 children, most of whom were given to the rich and powerful who then colluded with her to “seal” adoptions and cover their nefarious activities (see, for example, Gov. Herbert Lehman, NY, 1935).

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